‘The former miner’: a USP that became a millstone

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It was a perfectly decent ministerial reshuffle which I’ve nevertheless found horribly depressing. Oh, I don’t know ... it’s just that it feels not so much like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic as rearranging the sun-loungers on an increasingly aimless cruise around the Aegean.

Maybe I’ll write more about it later. But permit me here a small yelp of irritation at patronising remarks (including from the Prime Minister) about the new Transport Secretary, Patrick McLoughlin. He is my successor as MP for West Derbyshire and I’ve come to know this former Chief Whip. I admire him. Patrick has a problem